My best friend's mom, who is in her seventh decade, is about to lose a friend who has known her since childhood. This woman and her friend have shared over 60 years' worth of experiences. As her friend nears death, she grieves not only the loss of a dear friend, but the loss of someone who knows all her stories. Someone she can commiserate with who understands her past. She grieves for the idea that no one will remember who she was before she became this woman of 70 years. Like two halves of a single shoelace, these women have come together, crossed, and separated throughout the years, only to come together again, cross again. In the end, they are tied together through their stories. As one prepares to go, the other wonders what use anyone would have for the frayed half of a single shoelace.
I've had, and currently have, family members who have lost their stories. Geek Squad cannot repair the hard drive on which our stories are stored. There is no backup. The brain is a fascinating machine that, once it fails, is wiped clean of a myriad of moments that make us who we are.
And so, I urge all of us to find ways to save our stories. Pass them down to your children. Keep a diary. Start a blog. Write letters. Take pictures. Do not stack up your stories until there are so many that you begin to lose them. Do not realize someday that you are a broken shoelace shoved in a miscellaneous drawer. If you have already reached that day, define yourself again. A frayed shoelace can be very useful when incarnated for another purpose. Do not fear that you will not be remembered. Revisit those stories, if for no other purpose than to find yourself again.
To my parents: Keep the stories coming. I could never read a book that is more fascinating to me than the stories of your lives.
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| One of my memories, Woodland Tulip Festival, 2012 |
